The Epicure Shop

Back in 1980, when a customer suggested Patty Junior should call her newly opened cheese store “The Epicure Shop,” Patty didn’t even know what an epicure was. She could hardly have predicted, at the time, that the number of self-described “foodies,” “epicures,” and “gourmets” in Toronto would explode in the succeeding decades, making her wares —artisanal, locally-sourced dairy, olives, and condiments —something of an accidental trend.

Patty and her staff love the Parliament Street store for a simpler reason though; “we like food,” she says.